Critical Theory: Rituals, Pedagogies and Resistance: (4 On (De)Coloniality: Curriculum Within and Beyond the West)

This collection of essays incorporates some of the most important and longstanding foundational texts in education developed by the leading educational neo-Gramscian social theorist Peter McLaren. The volume provides a much necessary framework for understanding more precisely not only the historical and philosophical foundations for McLaren’s ideas, but even more importantly, it unpacks a clear understanding of the dynamics of ideological production framing the epistemicidal nature of capitalist schools. The chapters provide state of the art approaches grounded in both Marxist social theory and ‘post-critical’ sensibilities. They show the unique opportunities provided by critical theoretical approaches towards revolutionary pedagogies which are crucial to address the current challenges one is facing locally, nationally, and internationally. "Critical Theory: Rituals, Pedagogies and Resistance speaks to the current challenges we face as humanity, not only situating them historically, but also securitizing the role that our educational institutions, curriculum matrixes and teacher education programs have played in such social havoc. It provides crucial insights, not only to help a better understanding of the accomplishments produced by the critical educational and curriculum river in the struggle against the educational and curriculum epistemicide, but also to help explore alternative ways responsive to the world’s endless epistemological difference and diversity. While the future of our field needs to go beyond Peter McLaren’s intellectual thesaurus, it cannot certainly avoid going through him. The itinerant curriculum theory – and the ICTheorists – are conscious about that." – João M. Paraskeva, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Strathclyde

Table of Contents:
Notes on Original Publications Series Editor’s Introduction: ‘At the Beginning It Was the Commodity’: What Happened to Critical Theory?  1 The Current Social Havoc  2 The Jouissance of a Highly Cultivated Neo-Gramscian  3 Critical Theory and the Struggle against Epistemological Fascism  4 Itinerant Curriculum Theory: The Decolonial Turn 1 Introduction: Challenges to a Post-Democracy America 2 The Ritual Dimensions of Resistance: Clowning and Symbolic Inversion  1 Ritual  2 Theories of Resistance  3 Resistances as Rites of Transgression  4 The Class Clown: Arbiter of Passive Resistance, Inversion, and Meta-Discourse  5 Toward a New Conception of Resistance 3 On Ideology and Education: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Empowerment  1 Sifting through the Remains  2 Ideology and the Correspondence Theory of Truth: The Case for Multiple Subjectivities  3 Ideology Essentialism, and the Contingency of the Social  4 Science, Ideology and Context  5 Ideology and the Reflex of Capital  6 Radical Education and the Production of Meaning  8 The Schooled Body: The Ritualized Regimentation of Desire and the Domestication of Subjectivity  9 Ideology: A Matter of Truth or Praxis?  10 Conclusion 4 Multiculturalism and the Postmodern Critique: Towards a Pedagogy of Resistance and Transformation  1 Social Justice under Siege  2 The Dilemma of Postmodern Critique and the Debate over Multiculturalism  3 Subaltern and Feminist Challenges to the Postmodern Critique  4 Ludic and Resistance Postmodernism  5 Multiculturalism and the Postmodern Critique  6 The Subject without Properties  7 Diffference and the Politics of Signifijication  8 Always Totalize!  9 Critical Pedagogy: Teaching for a Hybrid Citizenry and Multicultural Solidarity  10 Resistance as ‘la conciencia de la mestiza 5 The Anthropological Roots of Pedagogy: The Teacher as Liminal Servant  1 Summary 6 No Light, But Rather Darkness Visible: Language and the Politics of Criticism 7 Collisions with Otherness: “Traveling” Theory, Post-colonial Criticism, and the Politics of Ethnographic Practice – The Mission of the Wounded Ethnographer  1 Qualitative Research as a Discourse of Power  2 Shipwrecked against Infijinity: Field Relations as Competing Discourses  3 Knowledge and the Body  4 Knowledge and Truth  5 Research as Advocacy  6 Conversations with Silence: The Discourse of the Other 8 On Dialectics and Human Decency: Education in the Dock  1 A New Epistemological Alternative  2 Comrade Jesus: Christian Communism Reborn? 9 Rethinking Critical Pedagogy and the Gramscian and Freirean Legacies: From Organic to Committed Intellectuals or Critical Pedagogy, Commitment, and Praxis  1 Points of Departure  2 Points of Departure I: Ideology and Hegemony  3 Points of Departure II: Resistance, Agency, and the Organic Intellectual  4 Points of Departure III: From Organic to Committed Intellectuals  5 Points of Departure IV: Critical Pedagogy, Commitment, and Praxis  6 Points of Departure V: Committed Intellectuals and Critical Pedagogies 10 From Liberation to Salvation: Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy Meets Liberation Theology  1 Introduction  2 The Path to Liberation Theology  3 Pedagogy of Insurrection  4 The Idolatry of Money  5 Jesus Was a Communist  6 To Endure without Losing Tenderness  7 The First Religious War of the 21st Century  8 Towards a Global Ethics of Solidarity  9 Between the Material and the Spiritual  10 The Socialist Kingdom of God  11 The God of the Rich and the God of the Poor 11 The Abode of Educational Production: An Interview with Peter McLaren 12 Karl Marx, Digital Technology, and Liberation Theology  1 Karl Marx and Digital Technology  2 Karl Marx and Liberation Theology  3 Karl Marx and Christian Spirituality  4 The Christian Morality of Dialectical Materialism 13 Conclusion: The Future of Critical Pedagogy

About the Author :
Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA. He is the author and editor of 50 books on topics ranging from critical pedagogy, the sociology of education, Liberation Theology and Marxist theory. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He is Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Chapman University and Co-Founder of Instituto McLaren in Mexico.